The Alberta government is giving cities, towns and counties three years to figure out how to plan and share costs for regional services, defined as anything from roads to swimming pools to policing.

Municipal Affairs Minister Danielle Larivee introduced this and a sweeping set of amendments to the house Tuesday that could fundamentally change the way cities and regions work together across Alberta. The changes will be debated at 20 open houses across the province this summer and finalized early next year.

The cost-sharing requirements apply to the large city regions of Calgary and Edmonton, and to smaller municipalities, which must create collaboration frameworks with every entity on their borders. Calgary will see its voluntary membership in the Calgary Regional Partnership made mandatory, while Edmonton will see an expanded mandate for the already mandatory Capital Region Board.

The new rules will “require communities to come together,” said Larivee, and will go to independent arbitration if no agreement is reached. “We need to recognize our communities are interconnected.”

But Rocky View County, which abandoned the Calgary Regional Partnership seven years ago over concerns the voting structure was skewed in favour of denser urban areas, says it’s wary of being forced into a new arrangement, now called a growth management board.

“Our position was and still is when they were trying to gather information on these boards we felt that collaboration and co-operation were the way to go rather than mandating a group together,” said Greg Boehlke, reeve for Rocky View County.

“The main driver to Rocky View, Foothills and Wheatland leaving Calgary Regional Partnership was the rules changed one month before the ratification of the CRP that gave Calgary the double majority vote,” said Boehlke.

Amendments to the Municipal Government Act introduced Tuesday also addressed how to pay for new suburban neighbourhoods.

“Growth is not paying for growth,” Larivee said. “We’re just making sure the people who are benefiting are the people who are paying.”

Cities will now be able to charge developers for libraries, police stations, fire halls and community recreation centres if at least 30 per cent of the benefit from those new facilities goes directly to the new areas. The province is still writing regulations to ensure the cost to new homeowners is proportionate to the benefit.

“We’re not exactly sure how that’s going to work,” said Coun. Jim Stevenson, one of two Calgary councillors on the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association board. “We know that you just can’t lay a whole bunch of extra charges on the developer because then that gets passed on to the end homeowner.”

“There has to be a balance there,” Stevenson said. “We’re not sure exactly how that’s going to be but there will be something there to compensate (developers).”

Cities will also be able to take land, units or cash in lieu of units for affordable housing.

Morinville Mayor Lisa Homes, head of the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association, called the amendments a “great start.” The province still needs to legislate base infrastructure funding tied to inflation, she said. It needs to give municipalities alternative tax powers, such as the ability to charge a hotel tax in resort towns.

She’s disappointed the changes don’t address how school sites are assembled and used, either. The current wording still wouldn’t allow anyone to build seniors homes or a recreation centre connected to a school on reserve land, and doesn’t require the province to consult cities on which school projects move forward first.

Larivee said school-related changes may be added this fall after further negotiations with the school boards.

Al Kemmere, president of the Alberta Association of Districts and Counties, said the biggest challenge now is going to be “expectation management.”

Towns and cities need to realize their country neighbours rely on pipeline and telecommunication taxes to run their services and can’t easily subsidize their neighbours. But many counties and municipalities have already created voluntary cost-sharing agreements. Everyone will be watching for the detailed regulations, he said. “We’re hoping it never has to get to arbitration.”

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